This conversation seems to have taken an interesting detour. Clearly, OPs original point was that KOTD was (Nelson from the Simpsons voice) haha going to collapse like Grindtime. I agree with @Cabbagetown as clearly the numbers don't reflect this. You can find graphs of 'engagement' and 'views' and honestly KOTD's haven't changed all that much except for the spike with the Diz release.

As for the #2 league argument that is a bit less clear. RBE is having a huge event, but history has showed that risking the house on one big event hasn't always turned out well...

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As for the #2 league argument that is a bit less clear. RBE is having a huge event, but history has showed that risking the house on one big event hasn't always turned out well...

Agree 1000%, the only caveat being that a lot of the past big events that were the beginning middle and end of a league (i.e. total slaughter, botb uk, filmon, etc...) didn't have a fan base yet. RBE has 4yrs of events and classic battles and their average views are consistently above 100K).

So while I'm still confused as to how this event can make money, presumably the decision to spend is based in some semblance of reality.

If it's a 3rd party investment (as Drake was for that one Blackout) it'll be interesting to see if they get a 2nd round of funding following the event.

-If they do, it would be hard to deny RBE in the 2nd spot for leagues.
-If the next event is headlined by Show Off battling Arp, it's safe to say things didn't pan out.

This conversation seems to have taken an interesting detour. Clearly, OPs original point was that KOTD was (Nelson from the Simpsons voice) haha going to collapse like Grindtime. I agree with @Cabbagetown as clearly the numbers don't reflect this. You can find graphs of 'engagement' and 'views' and honestly KOTD's haven't changed all that much except for the spike with the Diz release.

As for the #2 league argument that is a bit less clear. RBE is having a huge event, but history has showed that risking the house on one big event hasn't always turned out well...

I'd say RBE's the #3 league at this point, and I'd put them at #2 if they can maintain their momentum after Rare Breeds. I'm surprised though that they don't have a million view battle yet (although it looks like Arsonal/QB will have that honor, since it's at 905K views right now).

So, elephant in the room. According to many here, KOTD have lost what makes them special and are at an all time nadir, and should get back to what first drew people in right? But like, KOTD is significantly more popular than it was then. This doom and gloom about them comes up every couple of months.

The truth is, Toronto is no worse than it has been for almost its entire history, but California carried KOTD. Cali went away, and what you see is what KOTD is now

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There are some really good posts in here (obviously @Profess with a stellar overview).

Maybe it was addressed, but what are we basing this fall from grace on?

Fan enjoyment? Preference of recent/upcoming battles?

Only reason I'm asking is that the KPI of opinion doesn't really hold much weight when running a business.
(A lame example is looking at the net worth of celebrities. Ben Affleck has made a number of horrible movies in the last couple years. Matthew Mcconaughey has chosen much better projects to work on and won the hearts of new fans and the awards for his role, Affleck’s net worth is higher than Mcconaughey’s…)

When you look at the battles released this year, RBE hands down wins from an avg. views perspective (all of their battles released are 100k+, KOTD has about 7 released since the start of the year that achieved 100k+, which reflects less than 50% of their battles).

However if you look at total views (just for battles, not all content) in the last 7 months, KOTD has 3.1M and RBE has 2.6M.

If we judge a business by their ability to make money, does youtube pay more based on the average views per video OR do they pay by total views (I don't know the details to this btw, from my understanding it IS total views but I could easily be proved wrong).

Basically, an advertiser doesn't necessarily care if Sno vs. Times was a "classic" or not...

It goes without saying that RBE's Mook event is arguably the best event of the year (maybe not arguably at this point), but what is the ROI that they are expecting from this?

It's going to be great for the fans of battle rap, but is the event going to make money? Either RBE has an outside investor OR ARP is going all in. If the event sells out with thousands of people in the venue, if they get tens of thousands of PPV’s, if the YouTube views propel each battle to a million plus, and their subscribers goes up 10 fold, this could be a highly profitable event. But is all that going to happen? Would you invest in a company that was investing heavily in themselves or a company that was playing it safe but had been sustainable for 10yrs?

At the end of the day, competition has made battle rap better imo. Smack events have gotten more interesting, more leagues pop up with new innovative ideas/battles, which means the biggest leagues have to adapt. Is the Mook battle more exciting than the Diz v. Oxxi battle, maybe. Will it make as much money? Probably not.

If KOTD stops throwing events and Organik goes back to a 9 to 5 job in order to fund Joey Gambello vs. Arcane in front of 9 silent white kids in Toronto, it's safe to say their business is failing.

But in terms of RBE, I'd wait to see if Arp can even continue after (seemingly) going all-in on an event.

At the end of the day, I agree with most of the comments in here. My personal feeling is that competition benefits the fans the most so I'm happy with however this works out. I'm just not sure if KOTD has fallen off as hard simply due to a lack of "classics"

Additionally, KOTD produced Frak v. Brixx this year. Which is the greatest battle of all time. So there's that.

Yeah, but RBE is at least out there taking risks. I haven't cared about a KOTD battle in a long time, and it's sad being on talkback with this small group of people acting like their releases are the best thing ever, but when you look in the comments, its unimpressive. Also throw in the fact KOTD crowds are absolutely terrible, and it affects the already mediocre battles. The lack of new talent, and still having Head ICE as champ is not helping either.